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How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

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Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#21

Post by jcranmer »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #5
jlg23 wrote: post #4

The article describes the issues I had with discoverability very well: As a European I always refused to pay the insane prices for apple products there. When I finally needed a mp3-player to survive daily commutes in public transport, I got an ipod touch. Without any printed documentation, I had to ask experienced apple users how to perform certain actions.

This is why, for me, the iPod ('classic') remains one of the greatest products Apple created. They managed to get so much of it right, almost uniquely. Hardware and software working very well together. Of course, it had a very specific function, which makes the task much easier, but I just wish they could follow it up with something remotely approaching as nice an experience.

I've been wanting to replace my iPod Nanos for a few years now (they're 10 years old already, and the batteries are starting to go), but everything nowadays is touch-screen, and so completely unusable for me. Why? With that tactile single click-wheel, it was very easy for me to put the iPod in my pocket and not look at it for the entire flight, even when I wanted to skip the next song or replay or pause.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#22

Post by blub »

ThomPete wrote: post #18
qyv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gestures are the epitome of interface metaphors. Not only that, but their hidden nature can make them exceptionally difficult to learn or master.

Not sure what gestures and what metaphors you are talking about. Touch something on the screen is not a metaphor it's the closest to what you would do in real life. This is why kids and people less experienced with computers have such an easy time picking them up and start using them.

Sure, touching is the easy part, but there are now quite a few gestures available:

* Four finger swipes on the iPad to go to the task manager or switch between apps.

* Swipe from the left to go back in a navigation controller.

* Swipe from the top to activate the notification center.

* Swipe from the bottom to activate the control center.

* Swipe list elements right or left (but not from the edge) to delete or perform other actions.

* Swipe notifications from the left to perform the default action for that notification.

And then there's 3D touch.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#23

Post by err4nt »

brandonmenc wrote: post #10

> Apple simultaneously made a radical move toward visual simplicity and elegance at the expense of learnability, usability, and productivity. Case in point: calendar. I simply cannot tell where one month ends and another begins in the flat UI. Sure, the skeuomorphic version looked corny, but it was a lot easier to use.

and iTunes went from a fully featured media library that focused on managing the media on your hard drive. iTunes STILL manages the media on your hard drive, but it's nearly impossible to manage the files through the stripped-down iTunes interface.

iTunes used to be a power-app, now I can hardly use it.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#25

Post by mcintyre1994 »

jlg23 wrote: post #4

The article describes the issues I had with discoverability very well: As a European I always refused to pay the insane prices for apple products there. When I finally needed a mp3-player to survive daily commutes in public transport, I got an ipod touch. Without any printed documentation, I had to ask experienced apple users how to perform certain actions.

As a new Macbook user this year one of my favorite examples of this is screenshots. On Windows I've always had a prt scrn keyboard button, Macbooks forego that. As of windows 7 I think, there was a program to screenshot a portion of the screen or a specific window, Apple don't have one of those. All the screenshot commands (screen, window, portion) are behind a 3 key keyboard shortcut that I have to look up all the time.

Edit: Csydas, I got a HN notify with a reply from you, it's a shame you deleted it - you brought up good points and I agree with you. If you were down voted before deleting it wasn't me.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#26

Post by enraged_camel »

Sfi81 wrote: post #3

Agree with much of the article. I personally find Apple iOS devices completely unusable because I have to constantly try to guess what kind of action or gesture will achieve what I want to do rather than being obvious. The same for several apps which appear to have become successful first on iOS before being ported to Android. I find remembering these gestures and actions an unnecessary cognitive load.

"Completely unusable"? Don't you think that's a bit over the top?

I don't know any advanced features but I can use all apps just fine. Pinch-to-zoom and a few swipe types are sufficient for most use cases.

Edit: why the downvotes? I didn't say anything controversial. If you disagree, write a reply.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#27

Post by nostrademons »

mrks_ wrote: post #11
sorenjan wrote: post #9

I've long found it strange that the same company that didn't want a second mouse button because they didn't want to hide functionality in context menus now hide so much functionality behind gestures with a varying amount of fingers. This started while Jobs where still at Apple, so it can't be blamed entirely on his successors.

This issue has been getting worse in OS X, too. I find myself continuously finding hidden functionality by holding in the option or command button while clicking or dragging. Frankly, and this may just be cynicism, I speculate that these hidden functions are a way for Apple to hold consumers hostage to their platform. If someone spends a few years learning all the idiosyncrasies of OS X and iOS, they may be too intim…

Nah, the original Mac had all that too. You'd select multiple files by shift-clicking. Command-option-escape would force-quit an app. Numerous corruption & crashing issues would be fixed by holding down Command-option-P-R on startup. MacOS 8 gave us Ctrl-clicking to pop open popup menus. Option-click would often do a number of strange app-specific things.

I suspect it's more that you're becoming a power user. Power users have always had a lot more functionality available at their fingertips, in exchange for investing time learning a platform really well. It's just market segmentation: you don't have room to put all the functionality that everyone might need on screen, so you put the stuff that most people need all the time on screen, get them hooked, and hide other stuff in an obscure reference manual so it can spread through tips & tricks blogs.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#28

Post by DanBC »

err4nt wrote: post #23
brandonmenc wrote: post #10

> Apple simultaneously made a radical move toward visual simplicity and elegance at the expense of learnability, usability, and productivity. Case in point: calendar. I simply cannot tell where one month ends and another begins in the flat UI. Sure, the skeuomorphic version looked corny, but it was a lot easier to use.

and iTunes went from a fully featured media library that focused on managing the media on your hard drive. iTunes STILL manages the media on your hard drive, but it's nearly impossible to manage the files through the stripped-down iTunes interface. iTunes used to be a power-app, now I can hardly use it.

> iTunes used to be a power-app, now I can hardly use it.

This happens to a lot of software. There used to be lists of "last good version of ..."

The Usenet group alt.comp.freeware sometimes used to recommend the last good version rather than the latest version. There's probably a Reddit subreddit for it.

ACDSee and Nero burning rom are well known examples. I guess Imgur is at risk of this, but they seem to be keeping stuff in check.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#29

Post by mikeash »

qyv wrote: post #13
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #2

(Re-posted at the suggestion of dang.) As someone who develops on both iOS and Android, and uses an Android phone, there was a lot in this article that I agreed with. Particularly Apple's prioritisation of beauty over design. One weakness was the discussion of undo and Android's supposed strength due to its dedicated back button. This didn't convince me: the back button on Android sometimes undoes operations, but oft…

Speaking of Undo, one of google's common features across several of it's products is the use of undo instead of confirmation, I absolutely LOVE this. If I archive an email in gmail (app or browser) it doesnt't ask me if I am sure I want to do that, but it does give me the option to immediately undo that action. This little feature is so wonderful when you think about it. It allows you to complete an intended action i…

Apple does this too. Except they hide the undo command behind a completely insane "shake the device" gesture, and half the time it fails to retrieve the email.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#30

Post by grishas »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #25
jlg23 wrote: post #4

The article describes the issues I had with discoverability very well: As a European I always refused to pay the insane prices for apple products there. When I finally needed a mp3-player to survive daily commutes in public transport, I got an ipod touch. Without any printed documentation, I had to ask experienced apple users how to perform certain actions.

As a new Macbook user this year one of my favorite examples of this is screenshots. On Windows I've always had a prt scrn keyboard button, Macbooks forego that. As of windows 7 I think, there was a program to screenshot a portion of the screen or a specific window, Apple don't have one of those. All the screenshot commands (screen, window, portion) are behind a 3 key keyboard shortcut that I have to look up all the t…

Mac OS X has always shipped with a screenshot utility called "Grab".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grab_%28software%29

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